Chapter 1

Sustainability Focus: Sustainability focuses on our ability to preserve resources for future
generations.
Biodiversity: Biodiversity is generally defined as the variability among living organisms and the
greater ecological complexes to which they belong.
Sustainability: “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs”
Sustainability Development Goals: The SDGs cover the following social, economic and
environmental development issues: No poverty; Zero hunger; Good health and well-being
Economic: Growth, Efficiency and Resource use.
Environment: Integrity of the Environment.
Tripple Bottom Line:
Economic: Prosperity
Environment: Planet
Social: People

Actions for Sustainable Solutions:

1. Slowdown Population Growth
2. Political and social institution should work on spreading the awareness.
3. In terms of doing short-term planning on source utilization long term planning should be
done.
4. Reduce greenhouse gases by using new technology
5. Land and Resource Planning
Sustainable Engineering:
Sustainable engineering is the development of engineering solutions to advance human life to
maximize benefits and minimize adverse impacts to the environment, the economy, and the society
(“the triple bottom line”) throughout the life cycle of a project.
Green Engineering:
Generally stated, green engineering is the development of engineering solutions that are protective of
human and environmental health throughout the life cycle of a project.
Generally stated, green engineering is the development of engineering solutions that are protective of
human and environmental health throughout the life cycle of a project.
 Chapter 2
Dry lands – defined as areas with arid, semiarid, and dry subhumid climates. The degree of land
degradation falls into one of the following four categories.

 Light – Lands that are mildly salinized or eroded; rangelands that contain approximately 70%
native vegetation.
 Moderate – Lands that have been moderately eroded or salinized, soil chemical and physical
integrity has been compromised, and rangelands that have 30–70% native vegetation.
 Severe – Lands that include frequent gullies or hollows; poor crop production; rangelands
that have less than 30% native vegetation.
 Extreme – No crop growth occurs, and restoration is impossible; damage may have been
caused by extreme erosion or salinization.
Land degradation occurs because of overexploitation of land resources or productive capacity.
Overcultivation, deforestation, and overgrazing are some of the common causes for l and degradation.
The ability of the land and its resilience to climatic disturbances is reduced. Soil productivity is also
reduced, resulting in reduced food production. Vegetation cover is reduced, often resulting in the
replacement of edible plants with nonedible plants.
Deforestation - The primary causes of deforestation are related to attempts to create agricultural land
by clearing forests as well as harvesting to gain wood for fuel.
Loss of Habitat and Biodiversity: Land degradation and deforestation not only result in the loss of
economically valuable natural resources within an ecosystem, they also have a significant adverse
effect on other plant and animal species.
These reductions in biodiversity are occurring because of increased conversion of open space to
agricultural land or urban use, overharvesting of plants and animals, draining and filling of wetlands,
overapplication of agricultural chemicals, overfishing, and air pollution.
have a significant effect, as its elimination from the food chain/food web can significantly upset the
balance of other species, either due its elimination as a predator or prey. Aggressive or invasive
species can quickly evolve into a dominant role as these natural checks and balances are removed.
This can result in a chain reaction of effects that can be of a global magnitude.
Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) Three Goals:
1. The conservation of biodiversity.
2. The sustainable use of its components.
3. The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of genetic resources.
Ozone Layer Depletion: Stratospheric ozone blocks the penetration of UV-C, and reducing the
incidence of UV-B by 95%, and UV-A by 5%.
In 1985, noticeable thinning (a 50% reduction) of ozone was detected over the South Pole. Cold
temperatures during the Antarctic winter and the vortex in the atmosphere induced by the Earth’s
rotation facilitate the accumulation of chlorine over Antarctica.
Air Pollutants: Air pollutants can be classified as primary or secondary pollutants. Primary pollutants
are the direct by-products of combustion or evaporation emitted to the atmosphere; some include
volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particulates, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur
dioxide, and lead. Secondary pollutants are the result of the reactions of primary pollutants with other
compounds within the atmosphere. Some of these include ozone, pero-oxyacetyl, nitrates, sulfuric
acids, and nitric acids.
Smog: The first form is industrial smog, which is a combination of smoke and fog. Industrial smog
consists of a grayish mix of soot, sulfur compounds, and water vapor. The second common form of
smog, photochemical smog, is primarily associated with vehicle exhaust in warm, sunny areas.
Pollutants, such as VOCs and nitrogen oxides, interact with sunlight in warm climates to forma
brown, irritating haze.

Water Usage and Pollution:

Point-source pollution comes from a single location or system, such as industrial facilities,
wastewater treatment facilities, and mines or other points of resource extraction/refinement.
Nonpoint sources consist of sources that do not have a specific point of discharge; rather, they often
consist of discharge resulting from areal or regional runoff.
Material Flow Analysis and Material Budget
How human activities dominate the flows of materials and how the present consumption rate of
materials will lead to the depletion of natural resources, which will affect the capacity of future
generations to meet their own needs.
Budget: A budget is defined as the accounting of the receipts, disbursements, and reserves of the
valued resource.
Reservoir: The resource is stored in a container called reservoir.
Pool Size: The actual amount of the resource is called the pool size.
Flux: The resource enters and exits the reservoir at a rate called flux.
Source and Sinks: The inflow and outflow streams are called sources and sinks.
The change in contents can be readily calculated once all flows are known. Conversely, measuring the
change in contents can aid in determining an unknown flow:

Cycle: A cycle is defined as a system of connected reservoirs that transfer and conserve a specific
resource.
The actual cycles for metals are much more complex than what the simple example in Figure 7.3
suggests. Multiple reservoirs can be identified in production, fabrication, manufacturing,
use, and waste facilities.
The average residence time of a metal (or any other resource) in a reservoir can be determined with
Eq. (7.2), where Ψ indicates the fraction of the constituent having a residence time between 𝜏 and 𝜏
+d𝜏.

Steel, which is widely used for a vast array of products, exhibits a

significant range in residence time on a product-by-product basis, from a few years for kitchen
gadgets to more than half a century for steel beams in buildings.
Constructing a Budget:
First Step: The first step is the identification of the sub stance or substances to be evaluated, followed
by reservoirs with the corresponding sinks and sources
Second Step: Then, the limits or boundaries of the system may be defined.
Third Step: The identification of the reservoir contents and the fluxes. This can be done with
available data or with specific measurements wherever possible, and estimations of resource content
and flux can be used if no other source of objective data is available,
In principle, the MFA can be conducted at any spatial or organizational level where a reservoir and the
associated sources and sinks can be identified and measured.
National Material Account:
The NMAs attempt to count all flows crossing jurisdictional borders and those crossing the boundary
between the ecosphere and the anthroposphere.

Minor flows are excluded even if they have significant environmental impacts.
Material inputs from the environment are defined as intentional extraction or movement of
natural materials by human or human-controlled means. Material outputs to the environment
are defined as material flows released from the economic system into the environment.

NMA is also a useful source of information to assess the sustainability of the practices and activities
in a country. It is often noted that large flows tend to have modest environmental impacts per unit
weight, while small flows sometimes have large impacts. This is often referred to as the “elephants
and scorpions” analogy.
NMAs may be used to estimate the environmental impact associated with the use and consumption of
materials. The total impact consists of the product of the weight of a material used and its potential
impact.
NMAs do not include the flows of energy, water, greenhouse gases, or pollutants. The addition of
these flows is important to assess environmental impacts and sustainability of the related
regions or countries. While making a comparison, it is important to make sure that the
assessments include equivalent types of flows.

Carbon Footprint Analysis

In atmosphere, the key natural GHGs are water vapor (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2). However,
changes in human activities in the last 150 years, such as rapid industrialization, massive use of fossil
fuels, and deforestation, have resulted in increased levels of GHGs entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
The main GHGs of anthropogenic origin are listed in Table 8.1, including CO2 and methane (CH4).
Carbon Footprint: The inventory of GHGs is usually referred as carbon footprint. The total
emissions of GHGs into the atmosphere are an important environmental issue as it associates with the
global warming and climate change.
Global Warming Potential: Global-warming potential (GWP) is a relative measure of how much
heat a GHG traps in the atmosphere. GWP compares the amount of heat trapped by a certain mass of
the gas to the amount of heat trapped, normalized by the same mass of carbon dioxide. Each gas has a
different GWP, which is a measure of its “strength” in contributing to global warming as compared to
carbon dioxide.
Carbon Footprint: Total GHG emissions are calculated and reported as carbon dioxide equivalents
(eCO2 or CO2e) by accounting for the GWP of each gas as reported in Table 8.1.The total GHG
emission calculation expressed in CO2e is known as the carbon footprint. In calculating the carbon
footprint, it is important to use the present values of the GWP that have been updated for the major
GHG gases (methane and nitrous oxide) presented in recent editions of the IPCC reports.
The GHG inventory is the accounting of GHG emissions associated with the operations of an entity, a
process, or a product.
Measuring your Carbon Footprint:
Scope of your Inventory:
First Step: Define the objective and purpose of measuring the carbon footprint. Once the limits of the
system are defined, all the sources of GHGs have to be listed and accounted. The limits of the system
must also include the unit and the time period to be used for accounting the GHG emissions.
Measure Emissions and Establish Baseline:
The next step is to identify the sources of GHGs and account for the emissions for each source.

 Scope 1, or direct emissions, includes the GHGs generated in the limits of our system due to
the generation of energy. For example, direct emissions may include the gases generated in
the combustion of fossil fuels.
 Scope 2, or indirect emissions, are GHG emissions generated to produce energy that is
purchased for use in our system; e.g. emissions for purchased electricity.
 Scope 3, or indirect emissions, are an optional category that includes GHGs generated for
other external sources but associated with our system; e.g. employee business travel.
Develop Targets and Strategies to Reduce Emissions:
An action plan may be designed using this data to manage the emissions. This plan is often known as
a Climate Change Action Plan. Carbon footprint reduction targets can either be absolute (e.g. A 10%
reduction relative to the chosen baseline year) or intensity-based.
Off-set Unavoidable Emissions:
To compensate for these emissions, organizations can then purchase carbon credits (or “offsets”) to
compensate for any unavoidable emissions. Offsets are derived from projects that are specifically
implemented to avoid emissions.
Independent Verification:
The final step in the determination of carbon footprint reduction efforts is the verification of the
process. The verification or certification is typically completed by an external organization.
Standards for Calculating the Carbon Footprint
One of the first developed standards is the GHG Protocol (ghgprotocol.org), a corporate accounting
and reporting standard issued by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the
World Resources Institute.
The ISO 14064 is organized into three parts or sections.
Part 1 includes specifications for guidance at the organizational level for quantification and reporting
of GHG emissions and reductions.
Part 2 includes specifications for guidance at the project level for quantification monitoring, and
reporting of GHG reductions or removal enhancements.
Part 3 includes specifications and guidance for validation, and verification of assertions

The carbon footprint can be determined using the Campus Carbon Calculator
This tool incorporates the carbon footprint into three scopes
(i) Direct emissions owned or controlled by entity
(ii) Purchased electricity, steam or heat
(iii) Other indirect sources owned or controlled by another entity
The total sum of these emissions will be the total carbon footprint of UIC determined for a one-year
period. The total GHG emissions or carbon footprint can be:
The UIClimate Action Plan includes the following guidelines:

Life Cycle Assessment

Life cycle analysis (LCA), is a methodology developed to measure the impact of products, processes,
or services on the environment, allowing for a measurement of the environmental sustainability of
such products, processes or services.
The goal to perform a structured and comprehensive environmental assessment of a product, process,
or activity during its life cycle. A life cycle refers to the major activities in the course of the product’s
lifespan from its manufacture, use, and maintenance to its final disposal, including the raw material
acquisition required for manufacturing of the product.

This approach, referred to as “cradle to grave,” considers all the environmental impacts that occur,
including use of natural resources, human health, and ecological consequences.
Procedure:
Process Based LCA: The conventional approach to completing an LCA is through the use of a
process-based LCA method. In a process-based LCA, the inputs and outputs into a specific product or
an activity are itemized.
Comprehensive LCA: While performing a comprehensive LCA, it is important to perform several
key steps, including a compilation of relevant inputs and outputs, evaluating potential environmental
impacts, and interpreting the results in relation to the objectives of the particular study.
The Coca-Cola LCA procedure was later refined by the USEPA to create the first attempt of LCA
standardization: the so-called “Resource and environmental profile analysis.”
In 1992, as a result of the Rio summit, the ISO 1400 standards evolved to establish a standard
protocol for sustainable development. After some modifications (Table 9.2), the present versions of
the ISO standards for LCA were issued in 2010.
LCA Methodology:
Goal and Scope:
It is used to improve the design of a product or the components of an activity to be more protective of
human health and the environment.
Assessment of environmental impacts of current products and activities
The overall burden to environmental health and the environment resulting from all inputs
(e.g.materials and energy) and outputs (e.g. emissions and waste generation) associated with the
manufacturing, use, and disposal of a product, including those associated with materials, transport,
and packaging of the product.
Baseline assessments may also be undertaken to determine the net effect of changes to the activity in
question. In both cases, the information from the LCA can be used to guide the development of
completely new products or activities.
Life Cycle Inventory:
In order to perform an LCA, it is critical to properly account for the inputs and outputs associated
with a system that is under study.
When assessing a system using an LCA, a system boundary must be defined first.
The boundary encompasses the system, which is defined as a collection of materially and
energetically connected operations that perform a defined function.
Inputs (i.e. raw materials, energy) and outputs (i.e. atmospheric emissions, waterborne wastes, solid
wastes, coproducts, and other releases) must be properly identified during the inventory analysis.
An LCI incorporates inputs and outputs to track material flows within systems.
Feedback Loop:
Another concept to be considered in LCI analyses is the feedback loop. The reversion of material
inputs and associated outputs to generate other inputs.
Stage Lifecycle:
In addition to inputs and outputs, the specific stages for the life cycle are also defined. Out of these
include raw materials acquisition and processing, manufacturing, use, maintenance, and reuse,
recycling, and waste management.
Unit of Function:
When performing an LCI, it is important to determine an equivalent unit of function. This allows for
all data to be normalized to a baseline unit.
Treatment of Data Collection:
The treatment of data collection is as important as including inputs, outputs, and system boundaries. It
is very important to determine the goals for data quality, which can then be used to determine
cost/benefit for accurate data collection, as well as data quality indicators, which serve as a
benchmark for determining if the collected data is useful and of a sufficient quality for the study.
Life Cyle Impact Assessment:
The LCI stage is very important when a comprehensive LCA is performed.
The objective of an LCIA is to evaluate the impacts to human health and the environment resulting
from emissions, resource extraction, and other interventions from human activities and technical
systems.
LCIA should address ecological effects and human health effects as well as resource depletion.
An LCIA evaluation aims to assess subjective descriptions of process to a human activity in objective
physical terms.
The assessment is meant to determine and assess the relative differences in potential ecological and
human health effects for each option associated with the activity.
 Chapter 10
The SLCA includes:

 Premanufacture
 product manufacture
 product packaging
 product use
 product recycling/disposal
Environmentally Responsible Product Matrix:
Once the key life cycle stages and environmental concerns have been identified, a matrix may be
established to account for the resulting environmental concerns with each respective life cycle stage.
Expanded SLCA:
Health and safety components may be included in the matrix and calculations.
1. Physical Hazard
2. Chemical Hazard
3. Noise Hazard
4. Shock Hazard
5. Ergonomic Hazard
 Chapter 11
An EIO model is used to represent the monetary transactions between industry sectors in a
mathematical form. It is a means to assess what outputs (goods or services) of an industry are
used as inputs or consumed by other industries.
This EIO-LCA model was designed to assess the environmental impacts of a product or a project
while over-coming the complexity of the full-scale LCA as well as the issues associated with
boundary definition and circularity.
The importance of this cannot be understated, as the heart of the EIO model is the “input–output
transaction table.”

zij define intra- and inter-industry flows; yi indicates flows entering use, or final demand; and xi
indicates total production, or output, of a sector. Columns represent the input, and rows represent the
output of a sector, respectively. Imports are entered to the columns (represented as inputs) to a sector,
while exports are entered to rows as outputs of a sector.
The intersection of the row and the column for a specific sector is the output from this sector that is
used as an input in the same sector.
Applications:

 EIO models have several important uses and applications when studying an economy. First,
they can be used to study the changes in supply, demand, and other relevant changes of an
economy.
 Additionally, they can identify when economic shifts have occurred or when outputs from
specific industry sectors have increased or decreased. This is quite a common scenario over a
given time period, such as the instance when output increases from service-based sectors
within advanced economies, coupled with a noticeable shift from low-tech manufacturing
outputs.
 Further, EIOmodels can be used to aid decision-makers to determine cause-and-effec
relationships within an economy, especially when connections or linkages have not been
previously understood or observed between seemingly unrelated sectors. Pronounced or
drastic changes in economies can also be mapped in such a manner.
Limitations:
EIO modeling does have some limitations. First, as an economic-based model, it is not particularly
useful in tracking physical transactions, such as materials usage or quality of recycled materials. The
solutions provided by the models can be limited in nature.
EIO-LCA:
The limitations of EIO models may be overcome through the coupling with life cycle assessments.
An additional row and column can be added to incorporate the output and input of the “environment”
sector. In this way, the utilization of natural resources as well as the effects of emissions and waste
generation can be added to the EIO model, as well as the influences on and resulting from interactions
with other sectors.
An approach also eliminates two major difficulties of conventional LCA studies – boundary
definition and circularity effects. First, the boundaries of an LCA study are, by definition, very
broad and inclusive because all inputs and outputs among all industry sectors are included. Second,
the circularity effects are considered in the assessment because self-consumption in the sectors is
included in the matrix.
Use:
The combination of an EIO and a life cycle assessment (EIO-LCA) is a mathematical method to
estimate the amount of energy and materials consumed, and the emissions generated from all
economic activities.
The method uses industry transactions, namely, purchases of materials among industries, and the
direct environmental emissions from each industry, to estimate the total amount of emissions
throughout the life cycle of a product, service, or sector. This mathematical procedure is able to
determine the effect of changing the output of a single sector in the whole system just using economic
and environmental data.
Interpretation:

 First, these models are linear. The model results represent the impacts through the production
phase of the sector, but the use phase and the end-of-life phases are not directly included in
 the results. However, additional analyses with the EIO-LCA method could be performed to
account for these life cycle stages.
 The input–output (IO) models used in the development of EIO-LCA models are defined for
the economy of a single nation. However, imports and exports represent a major contribution
to any economy’s transactions. In the IO models, the imports are implicitly assumed to have
the same production characteristics as similar products made in the country of study.
Uncertainty:

 The economic data may vary widely in relatively short periods of time. In a similar fashion,
environmental data can vary significantly over time due to operational changes in industrial
processes and process efficiency, the regulatory framework with respect to emissions or waste
generation, or production levels.
 There is also uncertainty with respect to the original or baseline data collected for the model.
The data used in EIO-LCA models is typically obtained from surveys and forms elaborated by
governments for statistical purposes and submitted to the industries. The uncertainty in
sampling, the degree of response from participants, biases inherent in these responses,
missing or incomplete data, estimations or guessing incorporated into the specific responses,
etc., can serve as a source of uncertainty in the modeling.
 Further, the baseline data may also be incomplete or have an unknown factor affecting some
degree of the data. Often, the unknown factor or factors may later become known and
incorporated, which can skew results due to the deviation with respect to the baseline data. A
good example is toxicological or toxic release data.
Physical Input-Output (PIO) Analysis:
Physical input–output (PIO) analyses are often quite detailed and require a significant amount of
effort as compared to the typically highly aggregated nature of EIO analyses.
EIO-LCA is a mathematical method that allows to determine the effect of changing the output
of a single sector using existing economic and environmental data.
 Chapter 12
Risk Assessment:
The process to identify risk and facilitate risk reduction for individuals implementing control systems
and regulations for those hazards identified in the environment.
Risk Management:
The management of risk is the process of balancing available policy alternatives to select the most
appropriate regulatory action. This is done by considering the data from the risk assessment and
environmental, economic, and social concerns to reach a decision that permits the minimization of
effects resulting from exposure to hazardous materials or activities.
Hazard Identification: the identification of those chemicals with a causal link to particular diseases
or health effects.
COPC, A hazard is anything that can produce the conditions to generate a damage in health or safety.
The identification of a hazard is not a problem in itself. The important thing is the probability of a
dangerous incident, an accident, or an exposure that may occur due to the hazards. This defines risk as
the probability of an incident of exposure associated with a hazard that may occur.
Dose–response assessment is the relation between the exposure to specific concentrations of hazards
and the probability of development a specific disease or health problem.
The dose of the contaminant is the amount of contaminant received by the individual, and it is
commonly expressed as milligrams (mg) of contaminant per kilogram (kg) of body mass.

For carcinogens (Figure 12.3), slope factor (SF) or cancer potency factor (CPF) is determined. For
noncarcinogens, the reference dose (RfD) is determined
Exposure assessment is the determination of the degree of exposure to hazards before and after the
application of the risk management actions.
When a substance is determined to have a negative health effect, and there is a causality between the
exposure to a substance and the development of specific disease(s), it is important to assess the
exposure on a qualitative or quantitative basis.
Furthermore, some classes of contaminants tend to be accumulated within organisms
(bioaccumulation). For instance, somemetals or organics tend to accumulate within fatty tissues, and
the toxic effects appear when the concentration within the organismreaches a specific level, even if
the concentration in the environment ismuch lower.This is defined as the accumulation factor, which
is the ratio of the contaminant in an organism to the concentration in the ambient, steady-state
environment, where the organism can intake the contaminant via the exposure pathways described
above.

Risk characterization is the definition of the nature and intensity of the risks to human health and
environment, including the degree of uncertainty of the effects after the exposure to particular
hazards.
The risk characterization can be defined as the likelihood of adverse effects for human health due to
the exposure to a hazard and defines the maximum exposure level to avoid such negative effect.
Ecological Risk Assessment:
The ecological risk assessment can be defined as the process to determine how likely it is that the
environment would be impacted due to the exposure to one or more stressors, such as
contaminant chemicals, climate change, diseases, changes in land use.
Method:

 Define the individuals, species, communities, population, or ecosystems affected that are
going to be the target of the risk assessment;
 Define the stressors to be analyzed: contaminant chemicals, microbiological (diseases) or
biological (invasive species) elements, radiation, physical factors (changes in habitats, flood,
etc.), and others;
 Define the source of the stressors: point sources (discharge of an industrial effluent) or
dispersed sources (acid rain);
 Determine the exposure pathways (air, water, soil, waste, and food) and routes (inhalation,
skin contact, ingestion, etc.);
 Determine the mechanisms of accumulation/assimilation/metabolization of the contaminants
in the living organisms;
 Define the ecological impacts of the stressors: diseases and health disorders, tumors,
mortality, reproduction effects, etc.;
 Define the duration of the impact: chronic, periodic or intermittent, immediate, and acute.
The ecological risk assessment, once the planning and scope are defined, is comprised of three
sequential steps (Figure 12.5): Problem formulation, analysis, and risk characterization.’
The objective of the risk characterization is to estimate the risk posed to ecological entities using the
data from the analysis phase. The conclusions of this phase have to include the severity of the effect
and their duration (acute or chronic), the frequency of the effects, and the individuals or
population affected. The conclusions must also include evidence for risk estimates, the overall
degree of confidence, identification of uncertainties, and the ecological consequences of the effects.